The sound I could never get from Marshall or Mesa

[jurgen]

Possibly no suprise to many of you, but after auditioning quite a few

candidates for V1 and V2, my homebrew express gets that really

pissed-off upper midrange grind (without fizzy highs or farty bass) formerly

restricted to the first Van Halen record.

Far as I can tell, the character of the grind has a lot to do with what lives in

V2. Long ago I had a JMP 2204 that got very close to this. Interstingly the

second stage in those was more or less identical to V2 in the express.

At some point soon I'll get a clip together

[drhulsey]

...after auditioning quite a few candidates for V1 and V2

What did you try and what did you end up using

[jurgen]

Started out with two GT 12AX7M. These sound a tad murky in my marshall.
But I thought in the wreck that might be a good thing.

Once I was confident I hadn't screwed up the build (my first) I went to the canonical NOS Tungsram.
Great cleans but a bit brittle when pushed hard and seriously microphonic.

So i tried some JJ ECC83S and ECC803 both so microphonic I could practicaly talk into them.
They sounded sweet up to a point then got raspy when driven hard.
Attempted to un-shrill this by doubling the coupler between the second and third stage.
Single notes were nice and thick but double stops and power chords got flatulent. So back to .002u


Next a Bugle Boy ECC82 in V1 -no microphonics at all but hardly any overdrive either.

Ended up with the quietest of the Tungsrams in V1, GT 12AX7M in V2,
V3 is the Bugle Boy.


Stay tuned: Got NOS Mullard and Amperex ECC83 on the way